Richard Brutti
PhD, Computational Linguistics · Director of Research
Hello! I recently completed my PhD in Computer Science (Computational Linguistics) at Brandeis University, advised by Professor James Pustejovsky. My dissertation, “Uh, Actually: Grunt Acts as Grounding Contributions in Multimodal Dialogue”, focuses on formal semantic and computational models for non-verbal communication, such as gesture and grunts, using naturalistic multimodal data.
Learning what my last name means sent me down the linguistics path. I received my BA in Linguistics & Italian Studies from Boston College and MA in Computational Linguistics from Brandeis.
I also serve as Director of Research at a large SaaS company, managing Machine Learning and Annotation teams focused on speech, audio, and NLP. Beyond my dissertation work, I have published on emotion recognition in speech, technology in education, and food and language.
Recent publications
Human-Centered AI Governance in K–12 Education: A Qualitative Content Analysis of Policy Gaps in Massachusetts School Districts
Journal of Research Initiatives
The Grunt Work of Conversational Grounding: Minimal Responses in Multimodal Dialogue
Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society 48
Talks
- Sep 2026 From ragù to gravy and back again: Overseas voices on authenticity construction and code-switching in Italian-American recipes
Tastes of Language: Past and Present Italian Culinary Discourse in Anglophone Contexts. Sapienza Università di Roma. · Rome, Italy - Apr 2025 Processing Events with Grunts
PEER - The Workshop on Processing and Evaluating Event Representations. University of Rochester · Rochester, NY, USA
